There were social tensions and protests. Financial chaos threatened the stability of the government. Simultaneous to the internal problems was an increase in the external pressures. Established ideas and institutions seemed inadequate to deal with new pressures at home and from outside. Thus, the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate must be seen as conjunction of two forces-the internal crisis of the bakuhan system and the western aggression. The very same factors that was responsible for the success of the Tokugawan system also became responsible for its degradation. Socio-economic realities were moving away from the feudal conditions and the hierarchy imposed from above could not remain stable for long. All the different that constituted the Japanese society of this period including the daimyo, the samurai, the merchants and the peasants underwent changes. Paradoxically, the roots of revolutionary economic and social change lay in the very control measures, which though effectively maintained the political status quo, but at the same time promoted economic changes that slowly undermined the Tokugawa
There were social tensions and protests. Financial chaos threatened the stability of the government. Simultaneous to the internal problems was an increase in the external pressures. Established ideas and institutions seemed inadequate to deal with new pressures at home and from outside. Thus, the downfall of the Tokugawa shogunate must be seen as conjunction of two forces-the internal crisis of the bakuhan system and the western aggression. The very same factors that was responsible for the success of the Tokugawan system also became responsible for its degradation. Socio-economic realities were moving away from the feudal conditions and the hierarchy imposed from above could not remain stable for long. All the different that constituted the Japanese society of this period including the daimyo, the samurai, the merchants and the peasants underwent changes. Paradoxically, the roots of revolutionary economic and social change lay in the very control measures, which though effectively maintained the political status quo, but at the same time promoted economic changes that slowly undermined the Tokugawa